Longview veteran remembers battle at Guadalcanal

Louis Evans was a marine who survived the bloody battles at Guadalcanal.

LONGVIEW, TX (KLTV) -

One story of service and sacrifice on this Memorial Day weekend is in Longview. A man who survived the bloody battles at Guadalcanal during World War Two. Once a marine always a marine.

91-year-old Louis Evans lives quietly now as a resident of Buckner senior living community. But 70 years ago he was fighting for his life as a marine on Guadalcanal.

"You're 21 years old, you're on edge and ready to fight. We knew what we were there for, we knew we were going to fight, we knew some of us wouldn't make it. We were going to win before we went in. There's no question. Marines are going to win," Louis says.

He was decorated numerous times, and was awarded a purple heart. But while he was recovering from his wound, the rest of his unit was sent to Tarawa, where many of his fellow marines died. A memory that still haunts him.

"We lost a lot there. Yeah, I still have feelings for them. Always will," he says.

He says Memorial Day should be important to everyone.

"It's a time to remember. It just means a recollection of what we did. And I hope it means that to everybody because it wasn't easy," Evans says.

And for all those that served, he says "Thank you."

Evans has one surviving member of his unit living in Montana, whom he has gotten to visit with over the past few years.